Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[harjan]

Shame no Canada update after all. Honda doesn't seem to have any control over their development.

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/ ... es-warning

[godlameroso]

I knew it wasn't going to be ready for Canada, Wazari, and Sasha both said it was unlikely. That's not to say they can't make some improvements. I wouldn't expect anything major until after the summer break, they will make small improvements every few races however, and combined with a good chassis, they can be competitive against anyone behind the front runners. As of Barcelona they were 1.7 seconds behind Mercedes/Ferrari, they gained .2 with the final update in Monaco, that means they're 1.5s off the pace, or a full year of development off Mercedes' package. That's been the trend since 2015, McLaren Honda has been a year behind everyone else. You can't make up that deficit by chipping away, you have to take a leap forward, which requires being bold. Well bold doesn't always work, in fact there's more wrong answers than right ones so statistically you will fail more than you'll succeed if you play that strategy.

Maybe by Singapore, or Malaysia they take a step forward and find .2 instead of .1, if they can get the gap to less than a second, they'll be in a good position for next year.

[PlatinumZealot]

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/3541 ... ver-honda/

It looks like curtains for Honda if they don't deliver by mid-season! Not words of confidence by Zak there... Honda is "Lost" he says.

[tom101]

everything has a limit, and this year without tokens is being worse

I still can not believe that Honda spend the whole 2016 year working with just a single piston engine. I understand that is more easy to manufacture and test improvements, but the fact that Hasegawa said, that they did not assemble the V6 until christmas to look for faults, for me seems a joke.

[Wazari]

Hi folks, just to clear a few things up, there was never a scheduled update for Canada. I think a lot of wishful thinking on everyone's part. The next planned update is major in its scope and requires tremendous amounts of man hours to accomplish. Basically the whole top half of the PU should be new.

MGU-H bearing failure is a result of unforeseen multi-directional stress on the shaft and entire casing that houses the bearings.

Should have, could have, would have..........Can't turn back the clock. This whole relationship between McLaren and Honda was rocky from the start and hasn't gotten smoother. We all Honda's performance failings thus far and McLaren has had its share of internal strife also.

I think some underestimate the amount of man-hours and MONEY it takes to put together a current F1 PU together from concept to race-track. Especially with less than half the budget and manpower of the other three.

[Wil992]

So what's the realistic timescale for implementation then?

[MrPotatoHead]

Hi folks, just to clear a few things up, there was never a scheduled update for Canada. I think a lot of wishful thinking on everyone's part. The next planned update is major in its scope and requires tremendous amounts of man hours to accomplish. Basically the whole top half of the PU should be new.

MGU-H bearing failure is a result of unforeseen multi-directional stress on the shaft and entire casing that houses the bearings.

Should have, could have, would have..........Can't turn back the clock. This whole relationship between McLaren and Honda was rocky from the start and hasn't gotten smoother. We all Honda's performance failings thus far and McLaren has had its share of internal strife also.

I think some underestimate the amount of man-hours and MONEY it takes to put together a current F1 PU together from concept to race-track. Especially with less than half the budget and manpower of the other three.

Thanks for your view on things Wazari-san!
I have been critical myself of Honda at times (usually when Alonso gets another DNF :/) but you are absolutely right - most people on here have no idea what it takes to build a high end race engine let alone one of the current F1 engines. I have some involvement in F1 and other race engines myself so I see what most do not.
I know Honda will get things right given enough time... I just hope that it's not the eve of the engine formula changing again!

Btw the next time I am in Japan I would like to buy you a glass of sake or two! Reading your input on these forums has always been nice for me.

[MrPotatoHead]

So what's the realistic timescale for implementation then?

The brutal truth is "when it's ready"

[MrPotatoHead]

everything has a limit, and this year without tokens is being worse

I still can not believe that Honda spend the whole 2016 year working with just a single piston engine. I understand that is more easy to manufacture and test improvements, but the fact that Hasegawa said, that they did not assemble the V6 until christmas to look for faults, for me seems a joke.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
As Wazari-san has said many times - they were too excited in the "Research" (single cylinder) stage that they kept pushing the "Development" (full engine) stage further and further down the timeline. An easy trap to fall into when you see continuous improvements on the test stand. If you have ever been involved in engine design and development you would understand the trap.

[diffuser]

There is an obvious issue with regards to setting expectations.

[tom101]

everything has a limit, and this year without tokens is being worse

I still can not believe that Honda spend the whole 2016 year working with just a single piston engine. I understand that is more easy to manufacture and test improvements, but the fact that Hasegawa said, that they did not assemble the V6 until christmas to look for faults, for me seems a joke.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
As Wazari-san has said many times - they were too excited in the "Research" (single cylinder) stage that they kept pushing the "Development" (full engine) stage further and further down the timeline. An easy trap to fall into when you see continuous improvements on the test stand. If you have ever been involved in engine design and development you would understand the trap.

No offense, but trusting the entire season to a single-cylinder engine seems to me a too risky and irresponsible decision. Of course it's easy to talk after everything. But I'm mechanical engineer and I would never agree with that decision.
A v6 engine should be assembled , to measure correlation and detect problems.


I didn't know honda had less than a half resources than Renault, that certainly explains the difficulties they suffer. But at the same time it is sad because reduces my hope.

Thanks you very much Wazari san for keeping us informed

[Singabule]

Multi dimensional stress on shaft and case means creeping on metal because of heat and forces? It is metallurgy issue or vibration issue? There is no shock asorber between H and Block? So H must be integrated within it, not bolted. What a risky design!

[MrPotatoHead]

Multi dimensional stress on shaft and case means creeping on metal because of heat and forces? It is metallurgy issue or vibration issue? There is no shock asorber between H and Block? So H must be integrated within it, not bolted. What a risky design!

The H could still be a separate housing and be bolted solid to the block.
Almost everything on an F1 is bolted solid.

[MrPotatoHead]

everything has a limit, and this year without tokens is being worse

I still can not believe that Honda spend the whole 2016 year working with just a single piston engine. I understand that is more easy to manufacture and test improvements, but the fact that Hasegawa said, that they did not assemble the V6 until christmas to look for faults, for me seems a joke.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
As Wazari-san has said many times - they were too excited in the "Research" (single cylinder) stage that they kept pushing the "Development" (full engine) stage further and further down the timeline. An easy trap to fall into when you see continuous improvements on the test stand. If you have ever been involved in engine design and development you would understand the trap.

No offense, but trusting the entire season to a single-cylinder engine seems to me a too risky and irresponsible decision. Of course it's easy to talk after everything. But I'm mechanical engineer and I would never agree with that decision.
A v6 engine should be assembled , to measure correlation and detect problems.


I didn't know honda had less than a half resources than Renault, that certainly explains the difficulties they suffer. But at the same time it is sad because reduces my hope.

Thanks you very much Wazari san for keeping us informed

As an Engineer myself I very much agree with you. If it was me I would probably skip the single cylinder stage all together. I was simply saying I can understand how they got themselves in the corner they did.

[Sasha]

Hi folks, just to clear a few things up, there was never a scheduled update for Canada. I think a lot of wishful thinking on everyone's part. The next planned update is major in its scope and requires tremendous amounts of man hours to accomplish. Basically the whole top half of the PU should be new.

MGU-H bearing failure is a result of unforeseen multi-directional stress on the shaft and entire casing that houses the bearings.

Should have, could have, would have..........Can't turn back the clock. This whole relationship between McLaren and Honda was rocky from the start and hasn't gotten smoother. We all Honda's performance failings thus far and McLaren has had its share of internal strife also.

I think some underestimate the amount of man-hours and MONEY it takes to put together a current F1 PU together from concept to race-track. Especially with less than half the budget and manpower of the other three.

Thanks for your view on things Wazari-san!
I have been critical myself of Honda at times (usually when Alonso gets another DNF :/) but you are absolutely right - most people on here have no idea what it takes to build a high end race engine let alone one of the current F1 engines. I have some involvement in F1 and other race engines myself so I see what most do not.
I know Honda will get things right given enough time... I just hope that it's not the eve of the engine formula changing again!

Btw the next time I am in Japan I would like to buy you a glass of sake or two! Reading your input on these forums has always been nice for me.

He doesn't live in Japan.